A Nationalized Tennessee Special Election Has Both Parties On Edge

Tuesday’s race to fill retired GOP Rep. Mark Green’s seat in Tennessee’s deep-red 7th District has become a national test for both parties.

The result — which is shaping up to be far closer than President Donald Trump’s 22-point victory there in 2024 — will portend Democrats’ odds of pulling off a blue wave next fall, whether their nominee wins or not.

Republicans were already fretting about post-Thanksgiving turnout in the off-cycle special election — and now snow is on the forecast in parts of the sprawling district, which stretches from Kentucky to Alabama and cuts into parts of Nashville.

Still, given the highly partisan bend of the district, Republicans and Democrats alike are predicting GOP nominee Matt Van Epps will topple Democrat Aftyn Behn on Tuesday night. If he does, the margin of victory will provide clues into whether Democrats stand to continue their overperformance on Election Day last month. Republicans, meanwhile, are eager to curb the left’s enthusiasm ahead of the midterms and see this race as crucial to that goal.

Trump has waded into the fight, holding two tele-rallies for Van Epps, and over the weekend he broke a month-long hiatus on X, urging Republicans to get out and vote. Speaker Mike Johnson — who can only afford to lose three seats and still retain his majority next year — spent Monday campaigning with Van Epps. At one point during an event, he put the president on speaker phone to address attendees.

“We have to win this seat,” Trump told the crowd while a smiling Johnson held his cell to a microphone. “The whole world is watching Tennessee right now, and they are watching your district.”

Democrats have tapped into their own starpower for the race. Vice President Kamala Harris made her first post-election surrogate speech for Behn, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) hosted a virtual rally alongside former vice president and Tennessean Al Gore on Monday night, demonstrating the range of Democratic Party ideologies backing Behn.

Top PACs across the aisle have poured in money, with Republicans outspending Democrats $3.1 million to $2.3 million, according to the tracking service AdImpact. Roughly 65 percent of that has come from outside groups, including top Trump Super PAC MAGA Inc., which has shelled out just under $1 million on the race.

Both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee have dropped money and deployed volunteers for the race. And DNC Chair Ken Martin campaigned for Behn in Nashville in early November.

Behn has been subject to a flurry of opposition from Republicans, ranging from a video of her being forcibly removed from Gov. Bill Lee’s office to an old podcast clip where Behn says she “hates country music.”

But she’s largely avoided those hits, instead remaining focused on affordability, which emerged as the top electoral issue of the year.

“Aftyn Behn wants one thing: to lower your costs,” said one of Behn’s closing ads in the race. “In Congress, she’ll stand up to both parties to make life more affordable.”

Privately, a handful of Democrats told POLITICO they don’t see a path for Behn to pull off the upset, but they are quick to claim the heavy GOP spending as a win.

“They're going all in to try to keep the seat from flipping in a district that should have been there in a walk,” said one Democratic strategist working on the race, granted anonymity to discuss it candidly. “The Republican groups had to come in and prop [Van Epps] up by throwing some of the red meat culture war stuff to their base.”

There aren’t many public polls. But the most recent one — conducted by Emerson — shows a statistical dead heat, with Van Epps and Behn within the survey’s margin of error. Republicans feel optimistic about their internal early voting calculations, which show Van Epps leading ahead of Election Day, an outcome that typically favors Republicans.

If Behn can significantly trim Republicans’ margin of victory, expect Democrats to quickly point to the dozens of closer seats they are targeting across the House map.

“This race was always going to be one that was nationalized,” Behn told POLITICO in an interview last month. “For us it’s been about nationalizing fundraising and nationalizing attention as a bellwether for the midterms.”

A version of this article first appeared in POLITICO Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.